Five fun facts as LeBron James chases 30K career points

LeBron James enters the Cleveland Cavaliers' Thursday game against the Orlando Magic with 29,959 career points, just 41 shy of 30,000.

Should he score those 41 points during this week's game, James, 33, would become the youngest player to reach that milestone mark.

While it's no shock that James is one of the greatest basketball players in the NBA, there are other titbits of information that may be surprising.

Thanks to Opta data, here are five fun facts about James's accomplishments as he prepares to make history.

He will be joining an elite club

When James cracks the 30,000-point mark, he will join the likes of Kareem-Abdul Jabbar (38,387), Karl Malone (36,928), Kobe Bryant (33,643), Michael Jordan (32,292), Dirk Nowitzki (30,802) and Julius Irving (30,026). Only Nowitzki, 39, is still playing, and he will be retiring after this season.

January is a good month to be LeBron

Over the course of his career, James has been particularly good in January, his second-most fruitful month when it comes to scoring. In 197 January games, he has averaged 27.8 points. Only in April has he scored more, with an average of 28.4 points.

Eight seasons averaging 27-plus points?

If James keeps up his trajectory, he will finish this regular season averaging more than 27 points per game - he's currently averaging 27.3 - and will would join Bryant, Wilt Chamberlain, Malone and Oscar Robertson as the only players to average more than 27 points in eight seasons. Michael Jordan takes the cake with 11 seasons with 27-plus ppg average.

King of shooting his shot

James has attempted the most two-point shots per game over the course of his career, averaging 15.5. The only player who comes close during that span is Amar'e Stoudemire with 13.2 per game. However, James sits in sixth place in actually making those two-pointers with 54.5 percent. Shaquille O'Neal leads all players with 10-plus two-point attempts with 59.7 percent.

Another 40-point game in his future?

While shooting more than 60 percent from the floor, James has had 26 games in which he has scored 40 points or more in his career. Especially with 30,000 on the line, he could he net more than 41 points on Thursday. In comparison, the player who comes closest to that games-with-40 mark is Kevin Durant, who has scored 40 or more in 19 games. Kobe Bryant scored 40-plus points on 60 percent shooting 18 times, and Stephen Curry, Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade have all done so 14 times.

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